49 JÁN KADÁR and ELMAR KLOS Peter Hames Since Ján Kadár

picture of Czechoslovak society at that time. While it does deal with “private” problems and there is little overt political criticism, the implicit criticism is 7 considerable, and the problems with which it deals take place in a social context. Hence, loneliness, cynicism, personal and professional failure, compromise, wrongful JÁN KADÁR AND ELMAR KLOS imprisonment, and lack of faith are shown as generalized characteristics of a Peter Hames supposedly socialist society. A strong sense of alienation is created by the mood of gloomy desolation with Since Ján Kadár made his first film as early as 1950, he was, strictly speaking, too old which film opens. There are shots of a church tower and a light accompanied by the to be considered a member of the First Wave. This is even more true of his habitual ringing of bells. A lorry passes through the night streets. A drunkard is thrown out of collaborator, scriptwriter, and producer, Elmar Klos, who was one of those involved a bar and catches a tram. The camera is situated with a driver‟s view of the road in drawing up the original nationalization plans for the film industry. Together, they moving forward along the tram tracks as lonely figures are shown waiting by the occupy an intermediate position between the older generation and those who made roadside. Zdeněk Liška‟s music accompanies the movement to create a sense of misty their debuts in the late fifties. However, the progressively critical and innovative isolation. As the tram passes by blocks of flats, it heads for the house at the terminus, nature of their work in the fifties and early sixties justifies their inclusion in the same a giant, isolated tower block that appears to rise out of a wasteland. It is a building stream as Helge, Jasný, Vláčil, and Kachyňa. that will be referred to later in the film as “the end of the world.” Kadár‟s first film, Katka (1950), made in his native Slovakia, told the story of a The film focuses on the subject of birth, on whether it is right to marry and have young village girl who became a factory worker. This apparently uncontroversial work children given the state of the world. The subject recurs in Evald Schorm‟s got him expelled from the Slovak industry. “It had been decided that it was no longer documentary Why? (Proč? 1964) and Jaromil Jireš‟s feature The Cry (1963). The first necessary to urge people to leave their homes for industry. But above all, the film film examined the problem of the falling birth rate following the legalization of wasn‟t „national‟ enough, it wasn‟t sufficiently steeped in folklore and Slovakism. abortion, and the second looked at the nature of the world into which a child was 1 And that was referred to as „the bourgeois point of view.‟” about to be born. House at the Terminus deals with essentially the same issues but is Forced to look for work elsewhere, Kadár turned to the Czech studios and began more directly linked to the atmosphere of the Cold War and the spiritual poverty of his long association with Elmar Klos. Their first film together was Kidnapped (Únos, Stalinism. 1952), and, although later rejected by Kadár as “an extremely naive, dogmatic cold- The theme is raised through the relationship between Olina (Eva Očenášová) and 2 war type of film,” it was accused of “bourgeois objectivism.” Only the intervention Karel Martinec (Vladimír Ráž). He is a pharmacist who comes to live at the house, of V. I. Pudovkin saved them from censure. Their next film, Music from Mars (Hudba z and Olina is a woman living on her own, hoping for children. They fall in love and 3 Marsu, 1954), was a musical comedy adapted from a story by Blažek criticizing she becomes pregnant. Karel initially tries to give her something to stop the bureaucracy. This time, Kadár and Klos were accused of having slandered public pregnancy and, later, following a crisis in their relationship, takes her to an figures. abortionist. Finally, she rejects him and determines to have the child out of wedlock. In view of the unavailability of these films, it is not possible to provide an She hopes that her son (she‟s sure it will be one) will become a proper human being adequate analysis. However, it is possible to consider their next film, the apparently and “be able to love a lot and never be lonely.” conformist House at the Terminus (Dům na konečné, 1957). According to Kadár, it was “a In this sense, Olina can be seen as a “positive” character, asserting the values of film which had nothing to do with politics or any so-called „social‟ subject matter... human life. Karel, on the other hand, is clearly “negative,” although it is a negativity 4 There were no problems: everyone was happy.” It is all the more surprising, rooted in the times. From his own point of view, he is a failure since he had always therefore, that House at the Terminus should present a pessimistic and highly critical wanted to be a poet and pharmacy is a second choice. When he arrives at the house, he announces that these are his tenth digs and that he keeps moving on in the hope 1 Ján Kadár, interviewed in Liehm, Closely Watched Films, p. 401. that “something may happen.” Faced with Olina‟s pregnancy, he argues that he is a 2 Ibid. 3 Vratislav Blažek is known primarily as a comic and satirical dramatist and made a major man who always thinks twice. What with the atom bomb and so on, there‟s no point contribution to the early films of Kadár and Klos. He later wrote the script and lyrics for the in having children. musical The Hop Pickers (Starci na chmelu, 1964), directed by Ladislav Rychman. It was a The film‟s theme is supported by subplots that contrast the situations of those sensational success with the younger generation and marked a breakthrough in the musical who have children and are unable to care for them and those who want children and genre. Blažek emigrated after the Soviet invasion. are unable to have them. Pešta (Martin Růžek), the drunkard from the film‟s opening, 4 Kadár, interviewed in Liehm, Closely Watched Films, p. 402. 49 appears at key intervals in the film‟s narrative. His wife has died, and it appears that best friend loses his job for justly criticizing evil happenings. The hero is granted a he was, at least in part, responsible. His small daughter, Hanka, now lives with her further wish. He can save his friend if he is prepared to give up all the advantages that grandmother (his mother-in-law) in the house at the terminus. When the grand- he has gained. There the film ends, with a question mark. According to Mira Liehm mother dies (the day Olina discovers her pregnancy), Hanka goes to live with the and Antonín Liehm: Kovanks, a decent couple unable to have children of their own. Pešta‟s genuine love for his daughter is never in doubt, but his attempts to live up to his responsibilities The film showed what the stage version had concealed: the mechanism of social are woefully inadequate. His attempt to gain custody of Hanka provokes Mrs. corruption, cowardice, and hypocrisy that the old man takes advantage of to fulfill the Kovanková‟s comment: “Those that don‟t want them have them and those that want wishes. And so the concluding question in the film was different from the one posed them can‟t have them.” To her husband, she challenges: “Say what‟s inside, what on the stage: if you truly begin to fight a situation that is destroying honest people, you have to count on losing the advantages that this situation brought to you. Are you makes you so unhappy. She‟s the one who couldn‟t have children.” It is when Olina really willing to do it?5 overhears this conversation that she finally rejects the proposed abortion. Olina‟s story is directly linked to the lives of those about her and also to the circle The film was banned and finally released in 1963 when “its criticism was toothless of life and death (the juxtaposition of her pregnancy and the grandmother‟s death). ... and its film language outdated.”6 Her positive and even hopeful attitude is presumably what saved the film from After Three Wishes, Kadár and Klos were banned from the studios for two years criticism. However, it is an attitude that contradicts rather than affirms the values of but returned again in 1963 for Death Is Called Engelchen (Smrt si říká Engelchen, 1963) society that have been portrayed. The sense of isolation conveyed in the film‟s based on Ladislav Mňačko‟s novel, and The Accused (Obžalovaný, 1964), based on a opening is carried through in its study of a group of characters “at the end of the screenplay by Vladimír Valenta, which analyzed the nature of Stalinist justice in a style terminus.” The grandmother dies alone, Pešta is left with his drink, the situation of reminiscent of documentary. In Death Is Called Engelchen they attempted a more the Kovanks is unresolved, and Karel‟s cynical defeatism is unchanged. adventurous style in what many critics consider to be their best film. The story is told The film even has an explicitly political dimension. Olina‟s neighbor has a husband in flashback through the recollections of a wounded guerrilla who wonders whether in jail but dates a young soldier in his absence.

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